Teaching the Truths of the Faith through Our Experiences

An Allocution to the Legion of Mary

Today's spiritual reading was about CCD. The beloved CCD. There was a time we all remember when what is now referred to as "faith formation" was called CCD. When we hear the name of the confraternity, we tend to think of organized classes for children, but the truth is that the work of evangelization and catechesis is accomplished much more outside of formal class settings. The work of evangelization and catechesis is accomplished in the minute circumstances and occupations of the individual convicted Christian life. This has played out again and again in the lives of the numerous saints throughout history.

Today, I would like to recall in partiuclar the example of Saint Panteleimon, sometimes called Panteleon in the West. Panteleimon was a successful physician, who preached the gospel of Christ through his work as a medical doctor. He served others in a meek and humble way, wisely using the medicines available to him, using the nature of medicine and physiology was a metaphor for the deeper things of the spiritual life. The greatest medicine at his disposal, the medicine he employed in the most extreme circumstances, and which worked the most astounding cures was the Holy Name of Jesus. No merely human physician can cure death, but Panteleimon knew that Christ, the Physician of souls and bodies can cured death in His Life-Giving Suffering, Death and Resurrection. Panteleimon's faith in Christ as Physician was so great that the Lord Jesus gave him the power to raise the dead through the Holy Name.

Panteleimon had a wonderful way of explaining the truths of the faith through the metaphor of medicine. I have known many who had gifts to make the same kind of compelling explanations based on their own fields and experiences. There was one very devout and faithful friend of my grandfather, an avid fisherman, who explained so many things about the truths of the Faith in terms of fishing. Similarly, I went to seminary with a man who had the same knack for giving faith-filled and memorable lessons based on automobile mechanics.

This kind of personal interaction outside of formal class, in the context of circumstances of everyday life is an example of the truth that the second century Christian author Tertullian pointed to when he said, "Christians are not born but made," and further, and I paraphrase, "the Catholic Faith is not so much taught as caught." Relating the Faith the way that Panteleimon did, by means of homely examples based on everyday experience, shows a love for the truths that are conveyed. To find faith and the truths of faith in church is one thing, but to find those same truths everywhere is quite another. Now that is real love.

I think it is given to each of us, at least in some degree, to teach the Faith from where we are, to expound our Faith to others as if all our lives were a metaphor for the Truth of truths. In this way, each of us has a unique contribution, because each of us has distinct experiences, distinct backgrounds. It is true that Panteleimon had deep insights into the nature of the mysteries of Christ from a medical point of view. It is equally true that a priest like Saint John Bosco had similar insight, which he conveyed to street urchins in a language understandable to street urchins. To go further, perhaps the humble farmer Saint Isidore and his devout, meek wife Blessed Maria de la Cabeza had the deepest insights of all, based on their experiences, even though they seem unremarkable and mundane.